According to data from Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority, the most popular Jewish baby names in Israel for the Hebrew calendar year 5775 (September 25, 2014, to September 13, 2015) were Tamar and Ori.

The other top names were…

Girl Names

Boy Names

1. Tamar
2. Noa
3. Talia
4. Shira
5. Yael
6. Avigayil

1. Ori
2. Eitan
3. Ariel
4. Noam
5. David
6. Yoseph

The top Jewish names for the previous year, 5774, were Tamar and Yosef.

(This list doesn’t include the names of Muslim babies and Christian babies born in Israel.)

These rankings aren’t entirely trustworthy, though. About 24% of the names registered in South Africa in 2014 represent babies born before 2014. They were simply registered late. And the placeholder name “Junior” was used so often at registration that it erroneously ended up in the #1 spot on the boys’ side.

But it is interesting that Bokamoso, which means “future” in Sesotho, made the top 10 for both genders.

Earlier this month, the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) of Dubai — one of the 7 emirates in the UAE — released lists of popular girl names and boy names according to a survey of school registration records. I’m not sure what age range the records covered, but these lists were also topped by Maryam and Mohammed:

Girl Names

Boy Names

1. Maryam
2. Sara/Sarah
3. Fatima/Fatma
4. Ayesha
5. Noor

1. Mohammed
2. Ali
3. Omar
4. Ahmed/Ahmad
5. Abdulla/Abdullah

One Dubai student named Mohammed was quoted as saying, “It is common to see four or five students share Mohammed as their first name in a class of 25 to 30 students. We usually get called by our second name.”

According to Moscow’s civil registration office, the most popular baby names in Moscow in 2014 were Alexander (for the 10th year in a row) and Sofia.

Among the names registered for the first time last year were Byzantium, Jazz, and Sevastopol. (“Russia’s annexation of the Ukrainian port city of Sevastopol in March reinvigorated national pride among many Russians.”) Two other unusual names that made headlines last year were Lucifer and Olimpiyada (a baby girl born several weeks before the start of the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi).

I don’t believe Russia releases country-wide baby name rankings, but the Mercator media agency has gathered a some data (“the first names of 21 million residents of Moscow and the Moscow region”) and created a cool interactive baby name popularity graph covering the 20th century.

Some observations about the Mercator data:

Lada “became somewhat popular in 1968 when the Soviet Union began production of a car by the same name. The name debuted on the top-100 list at No. 70, then declined to No. 76 a year later before falling off the chart.” Lada was originally the name of a Slavic goddess.

Vladimir “was the second most popular name in 1952 when current President Vladimir Putin was born.”

Ninel “debuted on the chart at No. 66 in 1924, the year that Soviet state-founder Vladimir Lenin died. Ninel slid off the list in the mid-1930s.” (See more Revolutionary Russian Baby Names.)

Last year’s top Hebrew names were Noa and Noam, according to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. (Later this year, the CBS will release all 3 sets of baby name rankings: Jewish, Muslim and Christian).